The Ark Desktop Wallet is an application which allows you to manage Ark transactions. It provides an extensive set of functionalities, including management of profiles and wallets, the creation of both online and offline transactions, wallet summary, stylistic customizations, multilingual support, various currency integrations including BTC and much more!

After opening the Ark Desktop Wallet application for the first time, you will be greeted with security instructions. Please read every slide, as each one provides essential details on how you can better protect your funds.

Once you've read through the welcome instructions, you will be presented a page on which you can create your first profile. This is a multiple-stepped process in which you enter or select:

The Desktop Wallet has a dedicated section, showing news and other relevant updates in the Ark Ecosystem. Often, you will receive new blog posts in this section, which can be accessed via clicking the newspaper icon in the wallet's navigation bar.

The Ark Desktop Wallet allows you to both create new wallets and import existing ones. You can begin either process by clicking the appropriate button at the top of the sidebar when on the app dashboard.

The wallet interface page can be reached by clicking on the wallet icon in the navigation bar of the application. On it, you will be able to view your profile or an individual wallet's balance. Some shortcuts are also provided to create or import a wallet and see the details of one of your wallet.

Transferring ARK from your wallet is the most common type of transaction.

You can quickly send a transfer by clicking on the Send button in the header of the wallet detail page. This will bring up a prompt, on which you can fill in the required information to create a transfer transaction.

Upon clicking Next, you will have to review the transfer transaction's details and decide whether to submit it, then discard or save it by clicking Send, Back or Save.

Delegated Proof of Stake, the consensus algorithm used by the Ark Core, requires network participants to vote for delegates with their funds. A vote is not like a transfer; it merely helps determine which delegates have the most support from network members. You may only vote for one delegate at a time, and your funds are not locked while you are voting.

Browse the list of registered delegates

Choose the delegate you wish to vote for, review their statistics and click Vote

Fill in the required vote transaction fields and click Next

Submit, discard or save the vote transaction by pressing either Send, Back or Save

Unvoting

Open the list of registered delegates

Click on the Unvote button

Review the delegate's stats and click the Unvote button

Choose a transcation fee, enter your security details and click Next

Submit the unvote transaction and Submit, Cancel or Save it by clicking either Send, Back or Save

To verify a message that was signed by a different wallet, you need the wallet's public key, the original message, and the resulting signature.

TIP

The public key of a wallet is much like the address, except it doesn't follow the same format and is not shown by default in the Desktop Wallet. You can view your wallet's public key by clicking the key icon next to your wallet's address in the wallet detail page's header.

The Ark Network will only know your public key once you have sent a transaction.

For demonstration purposes, the images below are shown from the perspective of a second wallet, assuming the necessary details to verify the message were provided to the verifying user.

Enter the message to verify, the public key of the wallet which was used to sign the message and the resulting signature, then click Next

Registering as a delegate is a simple transaction. It provides network nodes with a record of the sending address opening itself to accept votes from other wallets. You can only vote for an address that was registered in this fashion.

Expose more options in the wallet detail page by clicking the icon in the header

Network settings can be modified by clicking on the cloud icon in the navigation bar; bringing up a side menu. In the Network settings menu, you may select another peer to use for fetching transaction and wallet updates. Also, the menu offers some valuable information about the network and advanced configuration options in the Network Overview section.